Opinion

Lancaster Mayor Joe Shaw’s community service work has earned him deserved recognition beyond the Lancaster County lines.

Shaw, a Lancaster native and Lancaster High School graduate, was honored during the recent Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of the Community event with the Order of the Palmetto Award at the Fairway Room.

The Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian award for service, was created by Gov. John West in 1971 to honor lifetime achievement and service.

There’s a saying that I, and anyone older than 50, have heard. It goes something like, “Let the works I have done, what I’ve given and what I plan to do, speak for me. What I do should come from the heart and truly from the heart. Those deeds of goodness and kindness will be known by a higher power and should not be done for praise from man.”

Most everyone has a lot on their plate and it is easy to get frustrated. But one day our works – both good and bad – will be noted.

There are only 59 days left until the Nov. 2 elections. Are you happy with everything that is going on in your town and state? Are all of your ideas, principals and values met? You have some time left to go to see and hear candidates and listen to what they stand for.

It is time we man up and take ownership for the terrible mess our great country is in. It is our own fault. This terrible situation didn’t happen overnight.

Take a ride down Meeting Street. Drive slowly as you approach Market Street. Look right at the back and side yard of the house on that corner. I don’t know who lives there, but I have taken notice of the yard in my times passing. It brightens my day.

I am assuming a gentleman lives there as he is the only one I have seen outside. He has taken an unnoticed spot and turned it into an interesting lovely garden that shows creativity and imagination.

My name is Derek Smith and I am running for City Council District 5. Many of you do not know me, so I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself. I was born and raised in Lancaster. I graduated from Lancaster High School and also graduated from the University of South Carolina at Lancaster. Living in the area for all this time has given me a unique opportunity to see and learn our community and also recognize the problems I want to address as a council member.

I wholeheartedly agree with The Lancaster News staff when they state that voters must educate themselves about the candidates running for the mayor’s race.

In doing so, I caution readers not to use the newspaper’s Our View section as its primary source of information due to the unbalanced slant that it occasionally places on issues.

If the staff and writers are unwilling and unable to write a fair and unbalanced view, it is in my opinion, that they should do more in-depth coverage of the story and keep their thoughts and views to themselves.

A while back signs with former President George W. Bush’s face on them saying, “Do you miss me yet?” started to appear. Yes, I miss Bush, as much as I’ll miss a second term of Obama’s kindergarten, Marxist economics.

Are you kidding me? For the last hundred years, presidents, Congress, of both parties, and the Supreme Court have denuded our Constitution.

We’re worried about the old jail. It’s got a sagging roof that could collapse. How soon and how much damage that could cause is another question. And we’re not sure what the answer is, because, frankly, we’ve heard some conflicting information.

When we first learned about the problem in June, Lancaster County Administrator Steve Willis said the county’s Emergency Operations Center was moved out of the building after a structural engineer noted that the roof was sinking and could collapse.

It’s hard to believe that summer is nearly over for Lancaster County schoolchildren. While autumn doesn’t officially arrive until next month, Monday morning thousands of local students will say goodbye to the carefree days of summer and return to the classroom.

This week, teachers began getting their rooms ready for their new students. Their planning and preparation will pay off as they welcome students back. Many students will be sporting new clothes and shoes and carrying new lunch boxes and backpacks full of new school supplies.

This letter is in response to an article on the second-quarter finance reports of U.S. Congressman John Spratt and his challenger, S.C. Sen. Mick Mulvaney, as reported in The Lancaster News (July 23) and Carolina Gateway (July 28). The piece quoted several Mulvaney releases in which he painted himself as the favorite and the most supported by local residents.

Neither paper, it appears, fact-checked his statements, though campaign finance reports are readily available from the Federal Election Commission at http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml.

I am writing this letter to inform the people in Lancaster and South Carolina of some of the finest people in our county. I know the economy is in turmoil. I know jobs are being lost daily. But the adult education and literacy program should never be put at stake.

The Lancaster program is one of the best and most appreciated of its kind. The staff and teachers are blessed. They go above and beyond their call of duty.

County Council did the right thing July 27 when it refused to amend the county’s building codes after a developer interested in building a gas station near the new Walmart in Indian Land sought a change.

The developer evidently had a problem with the code that says commercial buildings in certain parts of the Panhandle can’t have prefabricated metal on more than 25 percent of the structure.

I knew it was just a matter of time after they changed one blue law before that someone would want alcohol sales here on Sunday. I was 100 percent right.

Someone has started a signature petition to try and get a referendum put on the ballot. If she is successful, I hope the residents of this great county will say no. Lancaster is just fine without alcohol sales on Sunday.

For about the last 30 years the Republican Party has increasingly brought libertarian philosophy into their platforms and plans for the United States. While many of us may applaud some of the certain aspects of this ideology, in its larger context and application to state and local life it may surprise you as to its very destructive elements.

These applications of libertarian philosophy can add to the current massive problems for our country: